CamperBob2 parent
I'm confused. The plot summary talks about an impenetrable sphere around our solar system, but also says, "The main character takes part in an expedition to a newly discovered habitable solar system with a shattered sphere." How'd the character escape from our own system?
Says it right here:
> From studying the Nataral's artifacts and writings, they learn that the only way to break the crystal spheres is from the inside.
He just had to go to the other solar system to learn how to go to the other solar system.
> It is also discovered that the Nataral chose to go into a kind of suspended animation around a black hole, joining two even earlier species, to wait for the other civilizations of the universe to develop interstellar flight capabilities.
They used their interstellar flight capabilities to go wait for someone in the universe to develop interstellar flight capabilities. Checks out.
If I recall (its been 25+ years and my copy is in storage), they went there to wait for other civilisations to develop. They were truly early life and there was literally nobody else and they determined that they would be waiting for millions of years, if not billions.
I don't know if it was this book, but the 'suspended animation' was basically pushing several large stars and neutron stars close enough together that the flat space between them was inside an encompassing event horizon, and there they waited, living their lives at an extremely slow (compared to the outside universe) pace.
It crashes into the sphere, but must have also broken it: "the only way to break the crystal spheres is from the inside".